City Adds Another to Bronx Food Menu

By

Laura Kusisto

Sept. 9, 2012 9:08 p.m. ET

A Greek food manufacturer is moving its headquarters to the Bronx, the latest win for the city in its bid to lure food businesses to the poorest borough.

Krinos Foods Inc., a Greek and Mediterranean specialty-food importer, will develop a roughly $20 million facility on what is currently a city-owned site in the Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx. The company will bring 85 existing employees, and plans to add five more jobs.

The company is moving from Long Island City. It is following Fresh Direct, which announced in February that it would move its headquarters and 2,000 jobs to the South Bronx from Long Island City, lured in part by $12.78 million in government subsidies.

ENLARGE

Krinos Foods is taking its 85 employees out of its Long Island City headquarters, above.
Peter J. Smith for The Wall Street Journal

Krinos imports and makes olive oils, cheeses, coffee, pastas and yogurts sold in grocery stores and served in restaurants. It was founded in 1958 in New York as the Arista Olive Company. It moved to Queens in 1981, but its facility had begun to show signs of age.

A number of manufacturers have fled the city altogether in recent years, many overseas, due to high prices for industrial space and the challenges of transporting goods in and out of the city.

"It's not the obvious choice for us," to stay in the city, said Eric Moscahlaidis, president of Krinos Foods. But he pointed out: "I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I wanted to be in New York."

The company is purchasing the site from the city for $3.5 million and will build a roughly 100,000-square-foot facility.

Krinos also looked at sites on Long Island and in New Jersey, which offered cost savings, but Mr. Moscahlaidis said the Bronx location offered easy transportation access and proximity to the produce market at Hunts Point.

Krinos will seek subsidies typically available to industrial companies, but didn't receive additional government incentives to stay in the state, according to company and city officials.

The city has invested heavily in trying to bring back even a fraction of the industrial activity it once hosted, including plans to revitalize and preserve up to 9 million square feet of underutilized industrial space, and to create and retain up to 30,000 direct and indirect industrial jobs.

"We've seen significant level of interest among industrial companies in locating in and expanding in the Bronx," said Seth Pinsky, president of the city's Economic Development Corp.

The Bronx may offer an appealing alternative, as other former industrial areas in Brooklyn and Queens have been transformed into luxury residential neighborhoods.

"The Bronx has yet to have the same gentrification pressures as Long Island City, Red Hook, Williamsburg and even Sunset Park. Industrial rents have remained much more affordable in the Bronx," said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future.

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